Lifetime study of the ColdADC for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

TL;DR

This paper presents a lifetime study of the ColdADC ASIC, demonstrating its reliability for long-term operation in cryogenic conditions within the DUNE neutrino experiment, ensuring data integrity over the experiment's lifespan.

Contribution

The study provides the first comprehensive lifetime measurement of ColdADC ASICs, confirming their suitability for extended cryogenic use in large-scale neutrino detectors.

Findings

ColdADC has a lifetime orders of magnitude longer than the experiment duration.

The ASIC maintains performance stability at cryogenic temperatures over time.

Reliability results support large-scale deployment in DUNE detectors.

Abstract

ColdADC is a custom ASIC digitizer implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology using specialized techniques for long-term reliability in cryogenic environments. ColdADC was developed for use in the DUNE Far Detector complex, which will consist of four liquid argon time projection chambers. Each contains 17 kilotons liquid argon as the target material in order to measure neutrino oscillations. Approximately 40,000 ColdADC ASICs will be installed for DUNE in the first two large detectors and will be operated at cryogenic temperatures during the experiment without replacement. The lifetime of the ColdADC is a critical parameter affecting the data quality and physics sensitivity of the experiment. A measurement of the lifetime of the ColdADC was carried out, and the results shown in this paper assure orders of magnitude longer lifetime of the ColdADC than the planned operation time of the detectors.